Tomb Raider followers, bless them, spend numerous time questioning how the collection all syncs up. If the Lara Croft we noticed within the unique ’90s video games is similar one because the rougher-around-the-edges Lara from the Survivor trilogy, then what occurred in between to have all of it make sense?
Fortunately, solutions seem on the horizon. Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics has already paraded round a brand new design for Lara that comes with her post-Survivor trilogy look with throwback costuming, a dedication to the “unified” timeline. However so far as the story goes, the brand new Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft is performing some main raise.
Earlier this month, showrunner Tasha Huo instructed Polygon that her purpose for the Netflix animated collection was to chart the hole between the Survivor trilogy and traditional video games. However Lara doesn’t get there by the top of season 1, even after defeating the Mild, discovering closure over the dying of Conrad Roth, re-bonding together with his daughter Camilla Roth, hugging it out with Jonah, and accepting her first pair of twin pistols. That’s as a result of Huo knew that if the present was successful there’d be extra tales to inform, and she or he didn’t need OG Lara to swimsuit up fairly but.
“I don’t wish to simply fast-track her to changing into traditional Lara as a result of it takes so much to construct that girl,” the showrunner says. “So season 2 will construct upon what we’ve already seen and develop her even nearer.”
Particularly, Lara will set off on a seek for Sam, her filmmaker good friend who first appeared in 2013’s Tomb Raider. Sam was engaged on a job “abroad,” final Jonah heard from her, however a dropped cellphone name from the outdated good friend is sufficient to put Lara on excessive alert. The ending of season 1 solely teases a number of scant particulars of the place the journey might lead her: in Sam’s condo, Lara finds indicators of a wrestle — a damaged espresso mug, a tipped-over chair, a shattered image body — and a yarn board tying some stolen artifacts to a shady tracksuit-wearing dude with a scar and photographs of cocaine.
Huo wasn’t able to spoil any plot particulars, however says it’s fastidiously plotted in order that Lara continues to develop and has room to enterprise on if Tomb Raider was to earn much more seasons. A high precedence in season 2: Proceed to attract out Lara’s humorousness.
“Possibly she finds it in Sam,” Huo says. “Sam has a lighter persona. There’s additionally simply much more for Lara to study. So in success and in these infinite seasons, we get to discover all the teachings and the way these adventures truly problem her to take these rising steps nearer to being the girl we keep in mind from the ’90s.”
For Huo, that traditional model of Lara can also be hyper-composed, in a method that she simply isn’t on the stage of her life through which Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft is ready. Sure, Lara Croft would fairly raid a tomb than go to remedy — however Huo intends to assist the character discover her composure within the subsequent archeology-fueled globetrotting mission. Simply because the history-buff showrunner desires to inject Tomb Raider with tons of actual historical past and tradition specificity, she additionally desires to bang the drum for legit self-care.
“A lot of that comes from meditation, stability, having all of those messy issues inside you but nonetheless someway discovering a method by way of calmness and self-composure,” Huo says. “I’m an enormous proponent of remedy and self-analysis as a method to simply develop as a human being. It’s implausible. And I’m glad Lara can do it. She hates remedy! So utilizing journey as remedy is a very good way for Lara to discover ways to be higher.”